Auctions added to Facebook

AUCKLAND-BASED auction house Webb’s is ringing the changes in its jewellery auctioneering with the launch of a Facebook-based bidding platform.

The auction house, which Otaki-based listed company Mowbray Collectables had a 49 per cent stake in, has recently adopted the application Buddy Bid for its auctions.

This week Webb’s had begun a noreserve auction for a 1 carat diamond, which closed on Sunday and last night had a lead bid of $712.

Buddy Bid was co-founded by Webb’s managing director Neil Campbell and used Facebook networks to sell products.

Campbell said this allowed Webb’s Facebook page, which had about 1600 ‘‘likes’’, to directly sell merchandise to its customers.

Furthermore, Facebook’s reach opened up a greater national, and potentially international, market to the auction house.

Campbell said Webb’s had quietly begun selling jewellery on Facebook’s Buddy Bid application about three months ago.

‘‘It’s a very easy product to offer online and there’s a lot of e-commerce already in that space.

‘‘We saw it as not cannibalising any of our current platforms and instead growing a new one – we see it as a greenshoot.’’

Webb’s would hold an auction at its auction house this weekend, but anticipated rapid growth in the online platform. Being able to sell product on Facebook through Buddy Bid justified Webb’s investment in social media, he said.